Stravinsky Violin Concerto | Works for Violin & Piano Deutsche Radio Nagy |Zsolt Philharmonie SKANAVI KATIA GOURDJIALIANA piano Chanson Russe 4:14 Danse Russe 2:52 Divertimento I. Sinfonia 7:12 II. Danse suisse 5:23 III. Scherzo 3:17 IV. Pas de deux 3:41 V. Variation 1:08 VI. Coda 2:16 Suite italienne I. Introduzione 2:19 II. Serenata 3:36 III. Tarantella 2:19 IV. Gavotta 3:44 V. Scherzino 1:26 VI. Minuetto e Finale 4:27 Berceuse 3:17 Tango 3:26 Violinkonzert I. Toccata 6:01 II. Aria I 4:40 III. Aria II 5:17 IV. Capriccio 6:37 Prélude et Ronde des Princesses 6:09 Circus Polka 4:11 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major (1931) and Transcriptions for Violin and Piano A violin concerto from the pen of Igor Stravinsky didn’t seem to be a promising idea at first. It turned out that the composer, despite his remarkable creativity, felt he lacked the experience necessary for writing a violin concerto and taking full advantage of the instrument’s possibilities in concertante style. Stravinsky explained his reticence at the time in the following words: “I am not a violinist and I was afraid that my slight knowledge of that instrument would not be sufficient to enable me to solve the many problems that would necessarily arise in the course of a work specially com- posed for it.” Stravinsky was not entirely inexperienced in handling strings, however, a fact that he was aware of: “I was not a complete novice when it came to handling the Violin Concerto. In my pieces for string quartet, in many passages in the score of Pulcinella, but most of all in The Soldier´s Tale I had the occasion to use the violin as a solo instrument and to become familiar with its technique.” Stravinsky’s self-doubt went so far that he even solicited advice from Paul Hindemith, who was well-known as an accomplished violinist and violist: “I asked him whether the fact that I did not play the violin would not inevitably be to the disadvantage of my composition. He reassured me completely by saying that, on the contrary, he thought it would help me to avoid a routine technique and would give rise to ideas that would not be suggested by the familiar movement of the fingers.” It took some persuasion to change the composer’s mind. He was supported and encouraged to go forward with the project from several sides at once. Stravinsky’s publisher Willy Strecker from Schott Verlag, violinist Samuel Dushkin and his supporters, and American composer Blair Fairchild (who commissioned the piece) all sought to dispel his doubts. Violinist Samuel Dushkin (1891-1976) was willing to offer his assistance while the Violin Concerto was being composed, giving Stravinsky advice from the perspective of an experienced soloist, and this turned out to be very helpful (his col- laboration on the solo part is explicitly noted in the score). Stravinsky and Dushkin had met in 1931, at Willy Strecker’s home in Wiesbaden. The Polish-born violinist was 39 years old at the time. He had come to America as a child, where he had studied violin in New York with Leopold Auer and been one of Fritz Kreisler’s few “official” pupils. He had already been successfully touring as a soloist for years, had often played in Europe, and was particularly interested in contem- porary music. Both men became friends, and a fruitful artistic collaboration developed between them. Stravinsky noted that Dushkin had “a musical culture, a delicate understanding, and – in the exercise of his profession – an abnegation that is very rare.” Stravinsky thus wrote his Violin Concerto for Dushkin, who held the exclusive performance rights for five years. The work was composed in spring and summer in Voreppe, a small town near Grenoble where the composer owned a house. The premiere was directed by Stravinsky and took place on October 23, 1931 at the Haus des Rundfunks in Berlin. The soloist was Samuel Dushkin. In January 1932, Dushkin performed the American premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Serge Koussevitsky, and the first recording featuring Dushkin, the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux, and Stravinsky was made in Paris in 1935. Dushkin was able to skillfully reconcile Stravinsky’s compositional ideas with the possibilities of the violin. Stravinsky repeatedly showed him what he had committed to paper. This could have been a whole page, sometimes half a page, sometimes just a few lines. Then they spoke about it. “Whenever he accepted one of my suggestions, even a simple change such as extending the range of the violin by stretching the phrase to the octave below and the octave above, Stravinsky would insist on altering the very foundations correspondingly. He behaved like an architect who, if asked to change a room on the third floor, had to go down to the foundations to keep the proportions of the whole structure.” In his conversations with his assistant Robert Craft, Stravinsky spoke extensively about his Violin Concerto in 1961 and categorized it: “The subtitles of my Concerto – Toccata, Aria, Capriccio – may suggest Bach, and so, in a superficial way, might the musical substance. I am very fond of the Bach Concerto for Two Violins, as the duet of the soloist with a violin from the orchestra in the last movement of my own Concerto may show. But my Concerto employs other duet combinations too, and the texture is almost always more characteristic of chamber music than of orchestral music. I did not compose a cadenza, not because I did not care about exploiting the violin virtuosity, but because the violin in combination was my real interest. But virtuosity for its own sake has only a small role in my Concerto, and the technical demands of the piece are relatively tame.” The concerto is written in four movements. Stravinsky did not include a cadenza where the soloist could have given full rein to his virtuosity. He had hinted to his publisher Willy Strecker that he was thinking of composing a truly virtuoso concerto. But he eventually decided to place much more emphasis on the interplay between the solo violin and the other instruments of the orchestra. All the same, Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto is a brilliant and ingenious work with flashes of virtuosity in the outer movements, though this virtuosity is never the priority. In their calm serenity, the two aria movements remind us of Bach. The Violin Concerto is a quintessential example of Stravinsky’s “Neoclassicism,” which is not interested in copying styles, but in creatively appropriating older models; in the process (and occasionally through moments of parodistic disassocia tion), something completely new is created. The movement titles clearly refer to the Baroque forms that have been borrowed from. Toccata and Capriccio, two motorically driven fast movements, frame the inner movements, the Aria I and Aria II, which are characterized above all by highly ornamented cantabile lines. The solo violin intones a striking wide chord, like a motto, at the beginning of each movement. Dushkin relates how this idea came to Stravinsky: “During the winter of 1930-31 I saw Stravinsky in Paris quite often. One day when we were lunching in a restaurant, Stravinsky took out a piece of paper and wrote down this chord (D-E-A) and asked me if it could be played. I had never seen a chord with such an enormous stretch, from E to the top A, and I said, “No”. Stravinsky said sadly, “Quel dom- mage” (what a pity). After I got home, I tried it, and, to my astonishment, I found that in that register, the stretch of the eleventh was relatively easy to play, and the sound fascinated me. I telephoned Stravinsky at once to tell him that it could be done. When the Concerto was finished more than six months later, I understood his disappointment when I first said “No”. This chord, in a different dress, begins each of the four movements. Stravinsky himself calls it his “passport” to that Concerto. The chord, incidentally, involves a “constellation of fifths”; three notes (here D, A, and E) standing at the interval of a fifth to one another (with octave displacement). This is one of Stravinsky’s favored cadential devices.” Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto is not about thematic relationships, developments, climaxes, and points of culmination. First and foremost, it is about creating sequences of compositional elements, like in a collage. It is lively, sparkling, and lighthearted music with the transparency of a chamber work, and places “objective” expression above emotional sub- jectivity. The collaboration between Stravinsky and Dushkin would continue to bear fruit. Immediately following the premiere of the Violin Concerto, Stravinsky began composing the Duo Concertante, his only original work for violin and piano. Then he made a series of transcriptions, working with Dushkin to create a repertoire for their concert tours together during the 1930s. A selection of these can be heard on this CD. The arrangement of the Berceuse from The Firebird was writ- ten in 1931, and the Danse Russe from Petrushka and Suite italienne followed in 1932, joined by the Divertimento in 1934. Chanson Russe is an arrangement of Parasha’s lament from the one-act opera Mavra that Stravinsky made in 1937, for his second America tour with Dushkin. The Tango, which took its inspiration from a traditional song, was written by Stravinsky in 1940 and published only as a piano piece. It was arranged by Dushkin for violin and piano. In March 1932, Stravinsky and Dushkin performed their first concert together in Milan.